Gold counters keep JSE in the black

The JSE was flat on Friday morning with gold miners making the biggest gains followed by platinums‚ after the latter soared by 3.19% on Thursday due to positive global sentiment. Resources‚ however‚ pulled back a bit.

The negative news of a downgrade of SA’s long-term foreign currency credit rating by one notch by Fitch overnight did not seem to have much affect on the local market. Fitch usually does a ratings review this time of the year.

At 10.01am‚ the all share index was flat (0.04%) at 40‚317.52 points‚ with the gold index adding 1.40% and platinums adding a further 0.60%‚ while resources gave back 0.61%.

Rating agency Fitch followed Moody’s and S&P in downgrading SA’s long-term foreign currency credit rating by one notch to BBB‚ while reducing the long-term local currency rating from A to BBB+.

“The good news is that the outlook from Fitch is stable‚ whereas Moody’s and S&P still have SA on negative outlook. The downgrade was prompted by underperforming growth‚ weakening public finances‚ infrastructure constraints‚ excess real wage growth and socio-political tensions‚” Rand Merchant Bank said in a morning note.

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